Herring on the Nile

by L. C. Tyler

  Proctor too was primarily worried about the stiff in front of us. ‘We’ll need to question all of the passengers,’ he said. ‘I’d be happy to give you a hand with that, Inspector.’

  Inspector Majid had, you will notice, said relatively little up to this point. Having now fully registered the material facts, he took matters in hand: ‘Don’t any of you touch anything, right? That includes you, Mr Proctor. Stay exactly where you are. And keep out of that pool of blood.’

  OK, then, it was officially a pool.

  The inspector, too, bent down to examine the body and, reaching the same conclusion that Miss Watson add one shortly before, stood up again. ‘I’m going to have to contact my colleagues at headquarters. In the meantime, we’ll need all of the passengers in the saloon.’

  We shuffled back the way we had come and walked through the dining room to the saloon. The trip was accomplished in silence, not even Miss Watson deeming it appropriate to jolly things up. Proctor, thinking we might well be here for a while, quickly appropriated the most comfortable chair for himself. He was not however a happy private eye, clearly feeling that he should be helping with, or indeed leading, the investigation.

  ‘I’m sure the police will invite you to assist them later in the process,’ said Jane Watson. It was nominally a consoling remark, but in practice simply drew people’s attention to the sad lack of trust that the local officers had for Herbie Proctor – which may well have been her intention.

  ‘At least we know it wasn’t one of us,’ said Proctor.

  ‘That is true,’ said Jane Watson. ‘I am happy to vouch for you, Mr Proctor. And for you, Elsie.’

  ‘You’d better tell them about the death threats that Raffles had received,’ I said to Proctor.

  Proctor picked at an imaginary spot on the table with his fingernail. He was going to look pretty silly and he knew it.

  ‘Raffles?’ asked Miss Watson.

  ‘The deceased – Mr Purbright as he was calling himself – had received a threatening letter,’ explained Proctor.

  ‘And you are saying that his real name was Raffles?’ asked Miss Watson.

  ‘That is correct,’ said Proctor.

  ‘And how do you know this?’

  ‘He was employing me to . . . look after certain matters for him,’ said Proctor. He had another go at the imaginary spot. Hopefully the table had a pretty solid veneer.

  ‘Ah,’ said Miss Watson. ‘And had you formed any views as to which of the passengers might want him dead?’

  ‘I had my eye on two of them,’ said Proctor.

  ‘Which two?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that,’ said Proctor, as if clinging to some small vestige of professional pride.

  ‘But two people working together?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Proctor.

  ‘How terribly interesting,’ said Miss Watson, as though some long-held suspicion had just been confirmed.

  We were at that point joined by the two Americans, both in pyjamas and silk dressing gowns. Tom had slippers to match his dressing gown. I would have to ask them where they shopped for nightwear. Those boys certainly knew how to dress for a crisis.

  ‘Anybody happen to know what’s going on?’ asked Tom. ‘We were told to come straight here. Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.’

  ‘Mr Purbright has been shot,’ said Miss Watson.

  ‘Raffles,’ said Proctor, though nobody much seemed to be paying attention to him. ‘His real name is Raffles.’

  Tom frowned. ‘Shot? Here? On the boat?’

  ‘Terrorists?’ asked John.

  ‘We don’t think so,’ said Proctor. ‘We think that somebody followed him out from England.’

  ‘That’s terrible,’ said Tom.

  ‘Did the police get you out of bed?’ I asked.

  ‘Are you kidding?’ said John. ‘That dreadful noise got us out of bed. What was it?’

  ‘They obviously decided to try to make up time and pushed the engines too hard,’ said Proctor. ‘We now have no engines at all by the look of it.’

  We were joined by Professor Campion and, shortly after, by a worried-looking Sky Benson, who was accompanied by the purser. Annabelle arrived, still in her silk evening gown, but now with a pale pink cashmere shawl round her shoulders. Finally Lizzi Hull appeared in a tracksuit and her cap. She yawned and sat cross-legged on the floor, slightly apart from the rest of us.

  ‘Is that everyone?’ asked the purser, doing a quick headcount. ‘No, we are still missing Mr Tressider.’

  ‘Have you checked his cabin?’ asked Majid.

  ‘Yes,’ said the purser. ‘Also the dining room and the sun deck.’

  ‘Do you know where Ethelred’s gone, Elsie?’ asked Majid.

  ‘No, he went off with . . .’ Then I stopped myself quickly. Yes, that was the slightly awkward bit. Ethelred had gone off with Purbright and Purbright had – no more than ten minutes later – been found dead in a great deal of blood. Of course, Ethelred had no gun. And while he had quite a good theoretical knowledge of guns, in practice I doubted he would have known which end to point and which end to hold onto. Anyone putting a gun into Ethelred’s hands would have been well-advised to stand back or take cover – if they’d explained where the safety catch was, anyway, and nobody in their right mind would tell him stuff like that.

  ‘He went for a walk round the deck,’ I said.

  I could see that Herbie was thinking hard, trying to recall the exact circumstances of Ethelred’s departure.If anyone did remember that, then Ethelred suddenly looked like the prime suspect. Which was nonsense. On the other hand, where was Ethelred now? If he wasn’t in the cabin or on the deck, where else was there a passenger could go? The boat was quite small but there was an awful lot of river out there. Had he decided to go for a midnight swim for any reason, would we have heard a splash with all of that engine noise?

  ‘I’ll go and look for him,’ I said.

  ‘No need. We are doing that right now,’ said Majid. He sounded a bit grim. Ethelred’s disappearance had not impressed him favourably.

  Mahmoud now entered with Captain Bashir. The captain had the dissatisfied look of a man whose boat was now travelling sideways down the Nile when he had planned it should go forwards and up.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Mahmoud began. ‘As you will have deduced, one of the passengers has been shot. The time has therefore come for us to introduce ourselves to you properly: We are both Egyptian police inspectors. I apologize for not having mentioned this small matter before, but we needed to remain undercover. We have now called for reinforcements, who will be with us very shortly. In the meantime, we have no option but to hold everyone here. You are not under arrest, but since the murderer must still be on board, we have to treat you all as possible suspects. I had already asked Captain Bashir to make full speed to the next town but unfortunately . . .’

  He smiled weakly at the captain, whose face remained every bit as grim as it was before.

  ‘. . . unfortunately the engines proved incapable of effecting this. We are however completely safe and will be able to bring the boat under control very soon.’

  The captain gave a short, but not especially happy, laugh. Relations between the policemen and the crew were not good. Without engines, there were no obvious means to stop us drifting sideways all the way to Alexandria, though getting back through the lock at Esna would be a challenge. I did not doubt that Captain Bashir had warned the policemen that it was inadvisable to run the engines too fast and that the captain was far from convinced that a ship drifting at a random angle was completely safe.

  There was a shout in Arabic from outside on the deck. Captain Bashir looked at Inspector Majid, but Majid shook his head. The captain shrugged.

  We were on one of the more deserted stretches of the river. I thought I could see the lights of a village in the distance, but for the most part the bank was black and unwelcoming. Only the moonlight revealed where the Nile flowed deeply and where the mudba
nks lay. Interestingly, looking through the starboard windows, I noticed that we were slowly converging on a large bank at that very moment. There was another shout from outside, but a little too late to prevent what happened next, if (without an engine) it was preventable at all.

  I must have sensed it coming and grabbed hold of one of the wooden pillars, as did the captain. The others were however all taken more or less by surprise, and both policemen were flung to the floor as our journey back to Luxor ended abruptly. There was a brief slithering sound beneath us and we were, for the first time that evening, moving neither north nor south.

  Captain Bashir said something to Majid, which I assumed translated as: ‘That’s another fine mess you’ve got us into.’ Majid did not reply, but Mahmoud asked the captain a couple of questions and got a couple of terse responses.

  Lizzi translated for us in a whisper: ‘The inspector asked where we were. The captain said we were on a sandbank. The inspector asked which sandbank. The captain said that up until now he hadn’t needed to know the name of every bloody sandbank on the river. He gave him the name of the nearest village – it’s some way off, apparently.’

  Mahmoud had taken his phone out and now went onto the deck, away from us.

  ‘Our colleagues ought to be here pretty soon,’ Majid told us.

  We all looked at each other but nobody said anything. I kept hoping Ethelred would walk in through the door, and that everything would be OK. But he didn’t and it wasn’t.

  After a while we heard a boat’s engine from a long way off. It proved, however, when it finally arrived, to be another Nile cruise ship. It slowed down and hailed us, and Majid went out and spoke to the ship’s captain across the rail. There was a brief exchange and the other ship went on its way.

  ‘Your colleagues are taking their time,’ said Proctor. ‘You might at least have asked that boat for a tow.’

  ‘We are firmly stuck on the sandbank,’ said Majid. ‘The other boat was too small to pull us off. In any case, we have given our position to the local police. They are travelling here by fast motorboat from Esna. While we are on the sandbank, nobody else can board or escape. I shall need all of you to hand over your mobile phones – that includes the crew.’

  ‘Well, at least we’re safe in the meantime. No homicidal maniacs running around with guns,’ said Proctor, reluctantly passing over what was clearly a valuable antique communication device. It seemed unlikely that it would function anywhere overseas – or in the UK come to that. I relinquished my state-of-the-art mobile (with superior apps). The others followed suit. Captain Bashir sent a message to the purser to begin a similar collection of phones owned by the crew.

  It was at this point that Ethelred finally appeared. He looked haggard and his tie was now frankly all over the place. My relief at seeing him was tempered only slightly when he drew a gun from his jacket pocket and fiddled nervously with the safety catch, taking it off, then putting it back on, then finally taking it off. Seeming reasonably satisfied with what he had achieved so far, he pointed the pistol at the two policemen.

  ‘I want both of you on the floor with your hands behind your backs,’ he said. ‘Elsie, find some rope now and tie them up.’

  Fourteen

  I had watched Purbright vanish round the corner. A minute passed very slowly. Nine to go. I continued to count them down. The breeze off the Nile felt cold, which is probably why I shivered.

  If time was going at a snail’s pace, however, the boat itself had suddenly started to pick up speed. The noise of the engines had increased perceptibly. I was surprised, bearing in mind how the captain had nursed the boat along up to this point, that he was risking going so fast.

  We passed a small village quite close to the river. Bright neon lights, installed at various angles, incongruously lit up some of the buildings. A number of old men, sitting out in the village square, looked up as we churned along. One pointed. They had seen many paddle steamers over the years and they too clearly doubted the advisability of pushing an old engine so hard. But it was not their problem. They returned to their board game and their coffee.

  By the time the ten minutes had finally elapsed, the village was just a few streaks of light beyond the stern, and the banks were dark on either side. Occasionally the Khedive’s floodlights would play on a nearby sandbank, as the captain steered a careful course. The noise from our engines grew deafening. I hoped somebody knew what they were doing. A sailor ran past me, heading for the bridge and looking as concerned as I felt. Instinctively I flattened myself against the wall, though who I was hiding from was not yet clear.

  I took out the piece of paper. I was reluctant to make the call, only to have Purbright reappear, smiling, just as I did so. On the other hand, I felt foolish standing there doing nothing at all. With the engines reaching a crescendo, I unflattened myself and started to walk cautiously in the direction that Purbright had gone.

  I passed the dining room, where (I could see through the window) a few people were still at the table, but there was no sign of the MI6 man, inside or outside. Then I stepped into a pool of blood. Just beyond it was Purbright.

  He was face down, with an exit wound in the back of his dinner jacket, and he was very, very still. The deck must have sloped slightly in my direction, because the blood – quite a lot of it – was creeping towards me, dark red, almost black, in the moonlight. I had to get help for Purbright, preferably without getting shot myself. I looked straight ahead then, rather improbably, behind me, expecting to see . . . I’m not sure what. The light reflecting off the shining barrel of a gun? A crouching assassin? No – the deck was deserted. I thought for a moment that I heard footsteps going away but the engine noise was so bad that I couldn’t be sure of anything. At least there were no footsteps heading in my direction. I knelt down. There was no sign of breathing. I took his wrist and checked his pulse. Nothing doing. I had a dead security service man on my hands, and saving the boat and everyone on it was now down to me, it seemed.

  Then I noticed a bulge in Purbright’s pocket, a bit smaller than a mass-market paperback and narrower at one end. To a crime writer this meant one thing and one thing only. I edged my hand slowly and cautiously into the pocket and made contact with warm metal. I had written about guns more often than I could remember. Normally however they were a loud bang somewhere offstage – or a brief TFFFFTTT noise, if a silencer was involved in the crime. Once my fictional detective had arrived, he (or the SOCO) got to examine the blood spattered on the wall and picked the gun up carefully on a ballpoint pen to examine it. I too examined the weapon now in my possession and wondered exactly what it would do to somebody if fired at close range.

  ‘So, where’s the safety catch?’ I asked myself. Probably the little lever there – but which position was likely to be ‘off’? Assuming that Purbright would have placed it in his pocket intending that it should not go off unexpectedly, I flicked the safety catch upwards and, with the gun held tightly in my right hand, carried on round the corner.

  I had become slightly disoriented and was surprised, when I checked the lighted window on my right, to find I was looking again into the dining room. I had worked my way round the outside of the room, crossing from port to starboard. On the other side of the glass, Elsie, Proctor and Miss Watson seemed to be conducting some sort of animated dumbshow. Proctor was shaking his head from side to side, then Miss Watson suddenly stood up and headed for the far door. The others followed and passed from my view.

  I continued walking, feeling an urgent need to move but not entirely certain where I was going. It was at that point that the engines finally gave up the unequal struggle. The boat slowed immediately and, for a moment, seemed to hang where it was, before beginning to drift back downriver.

  My immediate priority had been to find somewhere to make a quick call to the number I had been given. In the silence I felt more vulnerable than ever – as if taking another footstep might give me away. My own cabin was some way off, but the one next to the dining r
oom was very close and (I knew) empty, because Miss Watson had rejected it earlier. I speculatively tried the handle, expecting it to be locked, but the door opened smoothly and silently. I slipped inside and fastened the catch. I could make out, in the semi-darkness, a double bed, a chest of drawers, the wardrobe and the door to the bathroom. I moved across the room carefully, away from the window to a point where I hoped I could not be seen. In the silence, I dialled the number on my new mobile.

  ‘Yes?’ said an English voice. There was a pause that indicated I would get no more until I identified myself.

  ‘Purbright’s dead,’ I said. ‘What do I do?’

  ‘Who is that, please?’ Though I had presumably dropped something of a bombshell, the voice remained cool, measured, in control of itself.

  ‘My name is Ethelred Tressider. Mr Purbright gave me this number to phone if anything happened to him.’

  ‘Why did he do that?’

  ‘It’s a long story. He thought I was . . . Well, he just did. I don’t think we have time to go into it in that sort of detail.’

  ‘Possibly not. Then just describe what has happened, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘We’re on the Khedive – I guess you know that? We’d just had dinner. He went to meet somebody. I don’t know who it was. He didn’t return after ten minutes as arranged. When I followed him, I found him in a pool of blood.’

  ‘You’re sure he’s dead?’

  ‘Gunshot wound. Not breathing. No pulse. What would you say?’

  ‘Did you see who shot him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘The boat is somewhere between Edfu and Kom Ombo. The engines have given up and we’re drifting with the current – sideways.’